27 thoughts on “How to install Nvidia drivers in Ubuntu Feisty or later versions”

Yeah, that’s great for n00bs (I was one). The driver that the repositories call “glx-new” are not new. The newest nVIDIA Linux driver is 169.09 which you won’t see for another year from the repositories, I’m sure. Idiotic Imp? Jolly Juxtaposition? Klever Klump? Merry Marigold? Where do they get the names for the releases, anyway? All you have to do is download the newest driver from nVIDIA’s website, press Ctrl+Alt+F1, stop Gnome/KDE/Xfce, install the driver, start Gnome/KDE/Xfce, and you’re done. Badda-bing, badda boom. Just watch the Update Manager and don’t install a kernel update. Don’t worry, Hardy Heron is on it’s way.

The next version after Hardy Heron will be called Intrepid Ibex, and will be released in October. The names are Adjective Animal. That should’ve been the codename for the first release! Mark Shuttleworth chooses the names, and I think they’ve been descriptive and unique. That’s marketing.

I’ve got Hardy Heron installed on my PC at the moment,my current graphics card is an Nvidia 7900GS,when I go into the relevant menus to enable the driver,it says that it’s already enabled,I don’t have an internet connection at home so I can’t download it using my PC,I have to use an eMac at work.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to offer a CD or DVD of Drivers that can be ordered through the mail at the Ubuntu website?

BUT nVidia set refresh rate to 60mHz [correct] and system=>preferences->screen resolution : set rate to 50mHz doh!

RESULT: each window title bar, got corrupted on screen.

FIX: changed screen refresh rate to 52mHz IT WOULD ONLY ALLOW 50/51/52 in dropdown, still wrong [want 60] saved. When I retried screen resolution it had magically set itself to 60! and I have gotten my titles back!

I have dual boot (windows xp and ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn) hp dv6000 notebook. i followed these steps. when i rebooted my system, screen turned black and stayed that way till i restarted system. i search net and find that i need to sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
that fixed system in a sense that i was able to see my desktop etc. but my graphic card drivers are not installed. my screen resolution is poor (1024×786).

I’ve got 8600GS from Nvidia, everything worked with 1024x res, until I’ve tried to update the driver… now it’s all saying drivers are installed and it’s in use, but I have 800×600 res now, and driver is not loading, everytime I restart PC it loads in lowest graphics… 🙁 cant understand and find the answear in the whole Google system… plz anyone out there, any sugestions!?

I’ve been trying for ages to install nvidia drivers on ubuntu, and have given up in frustration (and reverted to XP). The method above doesn’t work because the list is completely empty, no drivers appear in it. Plus the machine is not on the net and won’t be, so I can’t use that method. Manual install doesn’t work either, despite getting the correct legacy driver from nvidia’s site, ubuntu complains it hasn’t got the compiled kernel, tries to compile it, and just says ‘failed to rebuild’ with no explanation. Hopeless. It appears impossible to run a Ubuntu installation unless it is on the net.

I have a similar situation as pv. I am naive enough though to continue to try and make it work 🙂 I am on the internet but I don’t have the nvidia drivers listed in the drivers dialog. Reverting to XP is going in the wrong direction. There has to be a way to make this work in Ubuntu. Any help?

Any idea on how to do this from the command line? Since I deactivated the NVidia drivers, my system crashes right after the graphical login. So I would like to reactivate the NVidia drivers. But your method does not work for me, because I can not get into Gnome.

Greetings – My NVidia drivers act strange too, changing the resolutions randomly and not allowing resolutions that I know are good for my monitor like 1360×768 while I know it works at 1280×1024.

This recently happened when I ran a game that was at 800×600 and the desktop was then changed to these strange settings while just before I ran the game it was 1280×1024.

For those of you who messed up their system by trying driver installation or modification I have this too say . . . most seasoned computer veterans make a compulsive habit of backing up their system before trying such touchy and mistake prone actions as driver installation or modification. Even when not performing such operations, it behoves all to routinely backup their system. In this way, when, and I emphasize when something goes wrong, there will be a fairly fresh backup image waiting to be copied over the probably hopelessly messed up and corrupt system you created for yourself.

When I say backup your system, I mean create a total and complete image and store it on a partition separate from the Ubuntu files. That way WHEN things go south, you can access this image and simply copy it to recover your sound Ubuntu system.

BootitNG is a utility I use (although there are others) and you can find it by Goggling it. Take action before you trash your system by downloading this utility, and by following the directions (it is easy to do) copy the BootitNG image to a CD or DVD. This CD or DVD will boot on the computer start-up (you have to set the CD or DVD drive to be the first boot device in the bios) and start the BootitNG utility. The GUI is fairly user friendly and the the image copy goes fast. I can back up an image of my Ubuntu Jaunty in around 15 minutes.

In the same way when you screw up your Ubuntu installation, boot from the BootitNG CD or DVD and restore your backed up image from your hard drive.

This will save you a lot of time and trouble.

BootitNG is free to try for 30 days, then they ask you to buy it, but don’t cut you off if ya don’t . . . its something like $29 now.

To the knob Windo$e Blows up lover . . . I’ll deal with these small problems with Linux for several reasons: 1) I don’t pay for a crappy O/$, 2) Ubuntu and Linux/Unix based O/S are much faster than Windoze and is much more secure, 3) I get all the software I need for free, and 4) since WINE is over the version 1.0 mark, many, many more games are playable on Linux/Unix based systems and can be used to run many more Windoze based entertainment and productivity applications. Games are the only reason I still have a Windoze Blows Up O/$.

BTW, the only time I have ever had my Linux/Unix based O/S lock up is when I’ve used a Windoze application installed using WINE.

Doug Johnson, Ubuntu is great please don’t get me wrong, however, unlike you I have a life to live and if I’m piss farting around trying to get the friggin’ Nvidia accelerators working, it is just pointless.

Also just a friendly hint, don’t go round talking dirt about WINdows because ur uber geek friends will knock you out (BTW I would say it is much more worth your dollar to get a WORKING OS which is pretty sexy *cough Windows7 cough*.

I am a “VIRGIN” with Linux and am attempting to install Ubuntu 9.04 on my HP a1250n desktop WITH an ALREADY installed NVidia GeForce 6800GS video card….which is working just fine with my ability to boot into either XP or Vista and play some serious games! However, when I attempt to install UBuntu, it apparently installs as it bangs the hard drive for about 5 minutes then plays this cool startup African tune, then gives me a gob of flickering screen colors. So any help that requires me to type in Linux instrucitons is “USE-LESS” as I have no screen. Many Google searchs reflect this NVidia complaint but with NO real help other than a gizillion unix instructions .. but without a operating screen that is no help. I am about to give up on Linux….. but then MicroSoft would win … and I am having a hard time accepting that … so this is my “almost last” attempt at getting HELP !

I WAS FINALLY SUCCESSFUL at installing Ubuntu 9.04 WITH the Nvidia GeForce 6800GS card already installed in my desktop. What I did, after several beers, was to start all over and actually read each and every option on every step that I took and “Lo-And-Behold”, when you insert the Ubuntu install disk, but BEFORE you select the “install” command, use the F4 function and select the “safe graphics” option, then proceed with the install. It worked for me on Ubuntu 9.04 and it installed a basic Nvidia driver that got me up and running. Once installed with an operational screen, you can then upgrade from there, if you want to. Why this was so hard to find and not documented on the internet is directly proportional to the alcohol density at the time … is the only explaination I can supply. Good luck everyone.

These posts are the reason Ubuntu is shit and you will never reach any form of market share in home users. It should install, running, if not there should be a button when you start up that says “install nvidia drivers” and they install.

Can’t agree more with Wade – software/drivers installation is still for geeks under Linux. Until this is fixed, linux will forever trail behind Windows. As much as we would all love to hate Windows, it’s simplicity is unparalleled. Software/ and drivers are easily available and installable.

I’m an above average user myself and I have to resort to Google to find out how to install a driver. Going to the vendor website and downloading the latest driver is just not enough, you have to tweak things here, there, everywhere. Come on Linux world, you can do better than this!